Slut shaming, girl power and sexualisation : Thinking through the politics of the international SlutWalks with teen girls

This viewpoint begins by exploring whether the global phenomenon of the 2011 ‘SlutWalks’ constitutes a feminist politics of re-signification. We then look at some qualitative, focus group data with teen girls who participated in a UK SlutWalk. We suggest girls are not only negotiating a schizoid double pull towards performing knowing sexy ‘slut’ in postfeminist media contexts, but also managing de-sexualising protectionist discourses in school, particularly in relation to the highly regulatory moral panic over child ‘sexualistion’. We consider whether the SlutWalks are adult-centric and if teen girls’ involvement in a SlutWalk offered any critical rupturings to sexual regulation in their everyday lives

Martian and terrestrial dust devils

When dust devils or convective vortices form they can be identified by specific meteorological parameters, a ‘signature’. If martian and terrestrial dust devil signatures are compared similarities can be identified

Schizoid subjectivities? : Re-theorizing teen girls’ sexual cultures in an era of ‘sexualization’

Drawing on three case studies from two UK ethnographic research projects in urban and rural working-class communities, this article explores young teen girls’ negotiation of increasingly sex-saturated societies and cultures. Our analysis complicates contemporary debates around the ‘sexualization’ moral panic by troubling developmental and classed accounts of age-appropriate (hetero)sexuality. We explore how girls are regulated by, yet rework and resist expectations to perform as agentic sexual subjects across a range of spaces (e.g. streets, schools, homes, cyberspace). To conceptualize the blurring of generational and sexual binaries present in our data, we develop Deleuzian notions of ‘becomings’, ‘assemblages’ and ‘schizoid subjectivities’. These concepts help us to map the anti-linear transitions and contradictory performances of young femininity as always in-movement; where girls negotiate discourses of sexual knowingness and innocence, often simultaneously, yet always within a wider context of socio-cultural gendered/classed regulations

The Okavango; a river supporting its people, environment and economic development

The Okavango basin comprises the Cuito and Cubango active catchment areas in Angola, in addition to the Kavango–Okavango non-active catchment in northern Namibia and Botswana. The Okavango River water and its ecosystem resources are critically important sources of livelihoods for people in the basin. Pressures from livelihoods and development are already impacting on the environment. These pressures may increase in the future due to the rapid increase in population, the peace process and associated resettlement activities in Angola, and major development initiatives in Botswana and Namibia. For instance, possible future increase in water abstraction from the Okavango River may affect the long-term environmental sustainability of the Okavango Delta by minimizing channel shifting and thereby reducing spatial biodiversity. The paper argues that while conservation of the natural environment is critical, the pressing development needs must be recognized. The reduction of poverty within the basin should be addressed in order to alleviate adverse effects on the environment. The paper recommends that the development of sustainable tourism and community-based natural resource management initiatives may be appropriate strategies for reaching the Millennium Development Goals of poverty alleviation and achievement of environmental sustainability in the Okavango Basin. These initiatives have a comparative advantage in this area as demonstrated by the performance of the existing projects

Diurnal Dust Devil Behaviour for the Viking 1 Landing Site: Sols 1 to 30

Previous martian studies have provided an understanding of diurnal dust devil behaviour for Viking 2 and the Mars Pathfinder landing sites. It is the purpose of this work to complete this analysis by analysing the meteorological data from the Viking 1 landing site

Viking Lander 1 and 2 revisited: The characterisation and detection of Martian dust devils

Dust devil data from Mars is limited by a lack of data relating to diurnal dust devil behaviour. The meteorological data from the Viking landers has been revisited to provide these diurnal statistics

A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting' : English

The purpose of this small scale qualitative research was to respond to and enhance our understandings of the complex nature of sexting and the role of mobile technologies within peer teen networks. It was designed as a pilot study – to investigate a phenomenon whose nature, scale and dimensions were unknown. Thus the research itself also was small in scale and exploratory in nature and also culturally and geographically specific. We conducted focus group interviews with 35 young people years 8 and 10 in two inner city London schools. At the focus groups we asked participants to friend us on Facebook, with a research Facebook profile. We then mapped some of their activities online and returned for 22 individual interviews with selected case study young people. We also interviewed key teachers and staff at the schools. The study found that threats from peers in digital social networks were more problematic for young people that ‘stranger danger’ from adults. Digital technologies facilitated new visual cultures of surveillance, in which young women were pressured to send revealing body photos or asked to perform sexual services by text and through social networking sites. In this way, sexting aggravated peer hierarchies and forms of sexual harassment in schools, meaning that sexting was often coercive and was sometimes a form of cyberbullying. Girls were most negatively affected by ‘sexting’ in cultural contexts of increasing ‘sexualisation’ shaped by sexual double standards and boys had difficulty in challenging constructions of sexually aggressive masculinity. The research allowed for exploration of when pleasurable sexual flirtation through digital communication moved into sexual coercion and harassment, which was illustrated through narrative examples. Considering the relationship between online and offline risks it found sexual double standards in attitudes to digital sexual communication were linked to incidents of real playground sexual harassment and violence. Finally, it found that children at primary school age were being impacted by the coercive aspects of ‘sexting’ at an earlier age, than prior research indicated

Online Sexual Harassment Comprehensive Guidance for Schools

Online sexual harassment refers to a range of behaviours where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. Online sexual harassment may constitute a number of criminal offences, depending on the nature of the online harassment. Whether the conduct constitutes a criminal offence or not, many victim-survivors experience these behaviours as a form of sexual violence. Throughout this guidance, we recognise and address the gendered nature of harms linked to online sexual harassment. Examples of online sexual harassment can be broadly split into the following areas: ● Unsolicited sexual images (e.g. someone sending an unsolicited image of their penis to someone else, often referred to as a ‘dick pic’) ● Unsolicited sexual videos ● Unsolicited sexual messages and comments ● Deliberately being shown pornography or sent links to pornographic content without consent ● Automated activities sending links to online pornography content (porn bots) 1. Unsolicited sexual content online refers to any sexual content shared online which is not wanted by the recipient. This could include content seen on apps, messaging services and websites which has not been sought out by the user. 2. Image-based sexual abuse refers to the non-consensual creation and/or distribution of sexual images. 3. Sexual coercion, threats and intimidation online could include a person receiving threats of a sexual nature or being coerced to engage in sexual behaviours on or offline via digital technologies. WHAT IS ONLINE SEXUAL HARASSMENT? While we make distinctions between these three categories for the sake of clarity, there are evident overlaps and links

When Black Feminism Meets Canadian Women's Studies: A Psycho-Social Analysis of Discursive Contradiction and Psychical Conflict in the Classroom

This paper explores how Black feminist curriculum challenges the pedagogy of Women's Studies in Canada through a psychosocial analysis of classroom observations and interview narratives. The difficulties experienced by white women and the traumatic effects for black women in negotiating discursive contradictions that emerge in the wake of inserting Black feminism into Women's Studies are examined.Cet article explore la manière dont le curriculum féministe noir défie la pédagogie de l'Étude des femmes au Canada par l'entremise d'analyse psychosociale d'observations en salle de classe et de narration d'entrevues. Les difficultés dont les femmes blanches ont rencontrées et les effets traumatiques pour les femmes noires en négociant des contradictions discursives qui émergent à la veille de l'insertion du féminisme noir dans l'Étude des femmes sont étudiés